that person while at rest will burn less calories than someone who weighs the exact same
but didn't have to lose that weight
hey what's going on my name is schuyler diehm i am a men's fat loss coach and in this video not only
are we going to be diving into the dark history of the calorie where it came from what's occurred
since then but we're also going to talk about does counting calories work right is counting calories
an effective strategy to lose weight now if you've been around the block for a while you've probably
seen a lot of people out there teaching that if you want to burn fat you have to be in a calorie
deficit and this is absolutely true right this is a law of nature if you are in a calorie deficit
if you are burning more calories than you consume you will burn fat now does that mean that you need
to count calories does that mean that you need to pay attention to the amount of calories that
you're eating so here's my take on this and i'm gonna preface this that i have never successfully
counted calories i tried it for one day i was not a fan you know my lifestyle and the way
that i structure my fat loss strategies is very effective and it doesn't require counting calories
and so i tried it for a day within a couple hours i was just overwhelmed confused by logging all
these numbers and i was just like it's not worth it now with that being said like i said counting
calories can work right it can work if you do it strategically if you do it the right way if you
don't just focus on the numbers but you focus on prioritizing whole real foods but it potentially
could cause more problems than it creates now before we dive into it let's kind of talk about
the background of calories right what is a calorie so a calorie is a unit of energy it's as simple
as that back in the 1800s around the 1860s was where the modern nutrition era kind of kicked off
you know before then people were just focusing on eating real whole healthy foods but in the
60s there was the invention of something called the calorimeter which was basically machine to
measure how much energy was being expended and so in the 1860s was technically when the calorie was
born now here's the crazy part right before then like if you look at pictures of people back in the
olden days no one is overweight people didn't need to count calories you think about even further
back the cavemen didn't need to count calories and this really wasn't a thing that people
knew of until it was created in the 60s now fast forward to 1918 and a book called diet and health
with the key to the calories by someone named lulu hunt peters was published and it sold over
two million copies and so this was really the era where things started to shift now the issue that
this created because people started to really count calories during this time was that there
was less attention paid to the quality of food and it was more focused on calories now before
we really dive into what that means i do also want to note that the author of that book dr peters was
also the person who began the indoctrination of associating morality with food right basically
that if you're not healthy if you can't control what you eat it's your problem and there's an
issue of morality that you need to fix which of course brings in shame guilt all these other
things that are not important and actually really really detrimental when working on your health
and so people started focusing more on calories and less on food quality what did that actually
do what did that mean now let's fast forward to kind of present day and there was a study in 2016
in the journal obesity and it was basically research into what happened with contestants after
they went off the show the biggest loser now that show is basically people who are extremely obese
came on and their goal was to lose as much weight as possible in a specific time frame now number
one what they found was that most contestants after the show just ended up gaining the weight
back and even more but what's really interesting here is that they found that people who lose that
amount of weight by restricting the food that they eat actually drastically slow down their
resting metabolism we got a little visitor and so basically what that means is that if someone loses
a lot of weight from being in a calorie deficit or restricting what they eat that person while
at rest will burn less calories than someone who weighs the exact same but didn't have to lose that
weight and so what that means is that in order to maintain that new weight that person is going
to either have to exercise a lot more than the average human being or consume a lot less calories
which is usually just leading to low energy and hunger along with that there's also hormonal
changes in the body so ghrelin the hunger hormone shoots up left in the fullness hunger hormone goes
down and so it's a really difficult thing to do right if you're in that position where you've been
on a restrictive diet you'll find that it's so much more difficult to maintain that weight than
every other human being out there now firsthand that may be a little overwhelming and we'll talk
about a strategy in a little bit about how to actually manage that and not have those effects
but i really wanted to pre-frame that before we talk about does counting calories actually work
right if we're thinking about counting calories yes it works like i said it's a law but as far
as fat loss strategies go i really believe it's one of the worst out there it's one of the most
detrimental because it messes with our idea of food it doesn't include this idea of high quality
foods low quality foods and there's a lot more that goes into it which we'll kind of dive into
now and so if we look at calories right calories in calories out it always works however there are
so many factors that go into how many calories you consume and how many calories you burn and
so just a couple examples here so your gut health can massively impact how you process calories
there's a study published in the journal cell that found that the presence of a specific type of gut
bacteria in mice actually blocked their intestines from absorbing as many calories from the food they
ate and then there was also research conducted at the weisman institute of science that confirmed
that there are specific gut bacteria that are more prevalent in folks who are overweight
and or insulin resistant and so someone who has this bacteria someone who doesn't really have the
gut health of someone who's extremely healthy and in shape is going to have a much more difficult
time absorbing certain calories and absorbing nutrients now along with that when you think
about calorie counts they're kind of just going as if every single person's body is the same
when everyone's body interacts with certain things in very different ways you as a human being are
unique and to say that this 50 calorie apple is going to be interacting the same in your body as
my body just completely ignores the complexity of what digestion actually is now along with that i
keep saying this how do you measure right you can count calories in that you're consuming but how do
you accurately measure calories out you know you could go to a calorie calculator website and try
to figure it out and they'll give you an estimate but again we are so different and depending on
our lifestyle a lot of things can impact how many calories we're burning you know just some examples
here so sleep can massively impact stress exercise obviously is going to impact how many calories you
burn but then also the quality of foods you eat you know there's a study published in the food
and nutrition research and basically what they found was that eating processed food led to a 50
reduction in calorie burn after the meal compared to eating whole food and so basically two groups
of people have the same amount of calories that they consumed but the amount of calories that
they burned was massively different based on whether those calories came from whole foods
or processed foods and not only that but hormones go into this insulin in the body goes into this
there's so many different factors at play that it's really really difficult to accurately track
and to also make sure that you're eating the right foods that allow you to do this in a way
that's healthy for your body and most importantly that's sustainable and so at this point you may be
a little overwhelmed you may be a little confused and so let me just kind of break down our system
and how we avoid counting calories and still losing weight so our focus is really two folds
we have a couple different things in our program but we focus on number one high quality foods
right that's it upgrading your ingredients which is something we talk about a lot on this channel
but also just making sure that you're consuming real food that if you have the option to consume a
brownie that's been home baked versus a brownie in this processed box that just mixed with a ton of
other bad ingredients choose those good brownies every single time but along with that where our
guys see the most results and this is actually the coolest part of this is through fasting so
if we look at fasting and how the body responds to it if you're eating less your leptin which
is that fullness hormone goes down so that means you're going to be experiencing more hunger but
when you eat nothing right when you fast your leptin actually goes up which is so backwards
for people because they think if they're not eating they're going to be more hungry but what
my clients have found is that when they implement some strategic fasting into their routine
they're not as hungry as often same thing goes with your metabolism right eating less actually
slows your metabolism but eating nothing when you're fasting actually speeds your metabolism
up and so it's the reason we teach what we teach you know it's one of the most effective ways and
healthiest ways for your body to start to just let go of this fat without feeling like it has
to pack it back on without slowing everything down and making it more difficult to maintain
where you're at so if you want to learn a little bit more about fasting or process check the link
in the description of this video for a training we put together the training is going to break down
just from a to z our entire process and that way you can decide if this strategy might be a good
fit for you but with that being said make sure to like this video make sure to subscribe to the
channel and hit that bell icon to be notified when we release new videos and if you want to
leave me a comment down below i'd love to hear from you have you counting calories before and if
yes what was your experience like that's all i got for you today guys make sure that you're going out
there and you're paying attention to the quality of foods and of course as always make sure to eat
smart move more sleep deep and be grateful for this moment i'll see in the next video